This Is A Revelation. Im A Woman Who Very Rarely Gets Compliments (or Harassment) From Random Guys, Or

This is a revelation. I’m a woman who very rarely gets compliments (or harassment) from random guys, or from obviously sexually/romantically-interested women. But since I grew up knowing I don’t have much control over whether or not I’m objectified, and knowing being seen for my body goes along with not being seen as equal or powerful, I’m super sensitive about feeling like I’m being objectified, including sometimes snapping at my male partner for crossing a line. I never thought that I might just have more experience receiving and giving body compliments.

But it’s true, I get plenty of validation about my body from female friends and random women on my outfits, hair, etc. I never thought about how lonely it must feel to never have that from my friends. If I tally them up, I probably have dozens of hours and hundreds of phrases’ worth of practice in giving compliments that feel nice to other women and getting compliments that feel nice to me. If I’d never had that, how would I express myself when I found someone attractive? How would I ask for attention to my own appearance, taste in clothes, body?

(note: I have no romantic or sexualized experience myself, so I admit *some* of these points rely entirely on secondhand stuff and media)

One thing I think is not talked about very much is that straight men live pretty much desexualized lives if we’re not actually having sex at that moment, and then there’s not much room to be the object rather than subject.

As I’ve said before, we men don’t have clothing options for “dressing sexy” in masculine clothing (there is cross dressing but that is different). There’s no male equivalent to the short skirt or low cut top. There’s no male lingerie that isn’t seen as a joke.

Further, we just don’t get validation for our sexuality outside of a sexual partner. We are almost never complimented for our looks or sexiness from platonic friends like women are, especially same sex friends.

There really aren’t many straight male role models for raw aesthetic sexiness in mainstream culture (besides unnaturally muscled men). In fiction, male characters are almost never attractive for embodying sexiness but rather for doing things (saving the world, being extremely witty, being a genius, winning the tournament, etc.). Their sexiness is non-aesthetic and sometimes is in spite of their aesthetics.

Anecdotally, it seems like a lot of men aren’t even called physically hot and sexy by their own sexual partners, who themselves focus on personality. There’s not much room to fulfill the role of passive sexism object for you partner for many/most men.

I think it is telling that a lot of porn for men ignores the man’s personality and has a woman just throwing themselves at the man, overcome with lust.

Also there the fact that women seem to rarely approach men and some seem to often expect the man to do most of the sexual escalation, especially in the early stages.

We talk about women of color or women who are disabled being sexualized, but we don’t talk about how all straight men are desexualized and denied the ability to be sexualized object.

This is lovely.

I’m reblogging though because it’s #relevant to my yesterday. I said “thank you for trusting us with this moment” to someone (Shitty was right, it’s a heartfelt way to acknowledge vulnerability!) - and then had a wild moment of fear that THEY might be a Check, Please! fan. That they’d know my heartfelt response to their vulnerability was just...me poaching. Textually.

Thankfully the moment passed. But it was good to hear about a random in-person fannish encounter. I’ve never had a spontaneous one of those.

I’m doing nanowrimo again this year (against my better judgement), and I’m also trying to be social while doing it, so I went to a local write-in yesterday.  I got to talking with one of my table-mates and we discussed the fact that we were both published. They asked for my pen name, I told them, and then they said I sounded kind of familiar.

So on a whim, I ask, “Are you by chance in the Check, Please! fandom?”

They nod. We meet eyes, start to grin There has been an exchange. We are already bonded, just a little.

Then, “do you know justwritins/sinspiration?”

Yes.

It me!!

And it turns out they’d just finished reading self reflection! 

So *waves to @dsudis* it was nice to meet you! I hope we run into each other again (or arrange it? I’d love to talk to you more)!

was cruisin my tl & this is so fucking important

The homeowner said the buck shows up everyday, so they gave him a bed, too.

it’s always amazing to watch adults discover how much changes when they don’t treat their perspective as the default human experience.

example: it’s been well-documented for a long time that urban spaces are more dangerous for kids than they are for adults. but common wisdom has generally held that that’s just the way things are because kids are inherently vulnerable. and because policymakers keep operating under the assumption that there’s nothing that can be done about kids being less safe in cities because that’s just how kids are, the danger they face in public spaces like streets and parks has been used as an excuse for marginalizing and regulating them out of those spaces.

(by the same people who then complain about kids being inside playing video games, I’d imagine.)

thing is, there’s no real evidence to suggest that kids are inescapably less safe in urban spaces. the causality goes the other way: urban spaces are safer for adults because they are designed for adults, by adults, with an adult perspective and experience in mind.

the city of Oslo, Norway recently started a campaign to take a new perspective on urban planning. quite literally a new perspective: they started looking at the city from 95 centimeters off the ground - the height of the average three-year-old. one of the first things they found was that, from that height, there were a lot of hedges blocking the view of roads from sidewalks. in other words, adults could see traffic, but kids couldn’t.

pop quiz: what does not being able to see a car coming do to the safety of pedestrians? the city of Oslo was literally designed to make it more dangerous for kids to cross the street. and no one realized it until they took the laughably small but simultaneously really significant step of…lowering their eye level by a couple of feet.

so Oslo started trimming all its decorative roadside vegetation down. and what was the first result they saw? kids in Oslo are walking to school more, because it’s safer to do it now. and that, as it turns out, reduces traffic around schools, making it even safer to walk to school.

so yeah. this is the kind of important real-life impact all that silly social justice nonsense of recognizing adultism as a massive structural problem can have. stop ignoring 1/3 of the population when you’re deciding what the world should look like and the world gets better a little bit at a time.

An old and homely grandmother accidentally summons a demon. She mistakes him for her gothic-phase teenage grandson and takes care of him. The demon decides to stay at his new home.